This short tutorial by user randomproblem shows us how to get FreeBSD installed via serial port connection. Follow the link below for the full instructions.

I recently wanted to install FreeBSD on a PC Engines APU device. The APU is a headless device, so it is not possible to connect a monitor. However, it does have a serial port.

For some reason, the current FreeBSD 10.3 documentation appears to be missing the information on headless installation that was present in the 9.3 documentation. (In fact, the entire section on advanced installation topics is missing.)

Fortunately, the procedure that was described for 9.3 still works with 10.2 and 10.3:

If you are looking to looking to make the switch to PC-BSD, this video by user Chris Were Digital features a beginner look at the FreeBSD based desktop operating system.

Available from http://PCBSD.org
“PC-BSD has as its goals to be an easy-to-install-and-use desktop operating system, based on FreeBSD. To accomplish this, it provides a graphical installation to enable even UNIX novices to easily install and get it running. It pre-configures KDE, video, sound, and networking so that the desktop can be used immediately. A graphical software installation program makes installing pre-built software, known as Push Button Installers (PBI), as easy as other popular operating systems. ” -Distrowatch.com

The latest BSD Magazine features an article on ZFS with FreeBSD dual storage controller concept by Mikhail E. Zakharov, secure VPNs on FreeBSD networks, as well as articles about OpenBSD, NetBSD, and GhostBSD. Download the PDF/EPUB from the link below.

This blog by user Eric McCorkle details his work in refactoring the FreeBSD EFI boot / loader code. Follow the link below for a full report on his findings.

I have just completed (for some value of “complete”) a project to refactor the FreeBSD EFI boot and loader code. This originally started out as an investigation of a possible avenue in my work on GELI full-disk encryption support for the EFI boot and loader, and grew into a project in its own right.

More generally, this fits into a bunch of work I’m pursuing or planning to pursue in order to increase the overall tamper-resistance of FreeBSD, but that’s another article.

Background

To properly explain all this, I need to briefly introduce both the FreeBSD boot and loader architecture as well as EFI.

FreeBSD Boot Architecture

When an operating system starts, something has to do the work of getting the kernel (and modules, and often other stuff) off the disk and into memory, setting everything up, and then actually starting it. This is the boot loader. Boot loaders are often in a somewhat awkward position: they need to do things like read filesystems, detect some devices, load configurations, and do setup, but they don’t have the usual support of the operating system to get it done. Most notably, they are difficult to work with because if something goes wrong, there is very little in the way of recovery, debugging, or even logging. ….

Phoronix summarizes a mailing list letter from Scott Long of Netflix, regarding his and several other developers’ plans to implement a compatibility layer in FreeBSD to run Linux DRM drivers.

While for years developers working on FreeBSD have been porting DRM/KMS driver changes from the Linux kernel over to their kernel, they have trailed greatly behind the mainline Linux kernel driver state due to the amount of changes they have been making to the driver when re-basing it against a new Linux kernel release. Now they are pursuing a new approach of using a compatibility layer where they hope to be able to more closely follow the upstream Linux DRM/KMS drivers.

The porting of Linux KMS/DRM drivers to Linux has traditionally evolved a lot of work and even changing the coding style to match the FreeBSD kernel. But this has been no easy task and right now they are carrying around a 17,000 lines of code difference against the matching Intel Linux driver.

The diffs against the upstream linux code have roughly halfed with each porting effort. The focus is on creating a linux KPI compatiblity layer for FreeBSD that will allow the DRM and KMS drivers to work with minimal changes. The goal is to get it under 1KLOC and to the point where its feasible to follow the upstream development on a change-by-change basis. Our ultimate goal is to align closely with the Linux graphics development community and collaborate with Intel, ATI, and others on keeping FreeBSD up to date in their product development efforts.
The Linux KPI module code and DRM modules will be put into the FreeBSD ports tree to make them more modular and sharable between different branches and forks of FreeBSD. We're hoping to get a BETA level release into the ports tree in time for the FreeBSD 11.0 launch this summer. However, the effort is still very much ALPHA quality right now and will stay in github as it matures.

RootBSD, known for its *BSD hosting services, has announced dedicated servers located in Dallas, TX datacenters. Not too long ago, the hosting provider announced that its servers were populating in datacenters in San Jose, the heart of the Silicon Valley. Their most popular plan is the Lambda plan, for those looking to get into BSD hosting.

Customers of RootBSD can now deploy bare metal servers to its Dallas data center, giving them a choice of MaaS or cloud services.

RootBSD expands the bare metal server presence of its rock solid *BSD-based hosting service to its Dallas data center, with its latest MaaS release and platform available to its customers now.

“Our customers can now deploy bare metal servers in minutes to our Dallas data center at a price that’s comparable to cloud servers,” Mark Price, RootBSD’s CEO, said. “This is in addition to the existing cloud services we offer at the location. No matter what their service needs are, whether it’s MaaS or IaaS, we can offer the best service on the *BSD platform of their choice — OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.”

The FreeBSD Foundation is offering travel grants for those interested in attending BSDCan 2016. The annual conference will be held on June 7-11, 2016 in Ottawa, Ontario. Visit the Foundation’s page to submit your application.

Travel grants are available to FreeBSD developers and advocates who need assistance with travel expenses for attending conferences related to FreeBSD development. Read through the policies and apply here.

BSDCan, a BSD conference held in Ottawa, Canada, has quickly established itself as the technical conference for people working on and with 4.4BSD based operating systems and related projects. The organizers have found a fantastic formula that appeals to a wide range of people from extreme novices to advanced developers.

Ken Moore, creator of the Lumina Desktop Environment, has made available version 0.9.0. This version adds a new compositing effect, and more improvements are lined up for version 1.0. Lumina is also part of the PC-BSD project. See the link below for the full notes, including a schedule for upcoming features.

First, I would like to thank everyone for their patience as we continue working toward the first non-beta release of the Lumina desktop. We are still planning on version 1.0.0 getting released later this year (aligning with the FreeBSD 11.0 Release Schedule or earlier), but some issues have come to light that required we adjust our feature list for version 1.0.0 a bit.